Sunday, November 14, 2010

For the last several years one of my goals has been to work a new swatch every day and add its picture to the KnittingFool web site. There have been times when I fell off the goal, like last year when my Dad died. And this week when my daughter asked me to make a sweater for her; a particular sweater she saw at Knitter's Midwest last August. She remembered that it was announced during the runway fashion show that the pattern would be in the Knitter's 100th issue. So when that issue came recently she found the pattern for the Celebrate Tunic and wanted me to make it.

I ordered the yarn, Cascade 220 Superwash, from YarnCountry.com on Saturday 11/13/2010. They had almost all of the 11 rainbow colors; we found close substitutes for a couple colors. The yarn arrived the following Monday. I wasn't expecting it that fast. I worked my guage swatch Monday evening and started the front of the sweater that evening. It is now the following Sunday and I just finished the second sleeve -- all the knitting is done. I'm going to take a break for a couple days before I block and finish the sweater.

My daughter should have made the sweater because the pattern is so simple -- all garter stitch and simple shaping. But the yarn was a bit more expensive than what she is accustomed to working with, and she does not have a good completion record, so she was intimidated by it.

I understand how that is. I made my first sweater at about her age. I made it out of Red Heart wool in a varigated shade of olive greens. I had to use the varigated yarn because my Mom would not front the money to buy all the yarn at one time -- varigated yarn reduced the risk of having a mixed dye lot. My weekly allowance was enough to buy two skeins. It took about six weeks to get all the yarn, two skeins at a time. It was a great sweater, a pattern from a woman's magazine (McCall's or Good Housekeeping), long cardigan, simple 7 stitch cables all over (with the purl stitch down the middle) and set in pockets. Fairly challenging for a first time sweater but I was so determined to show my Mom that I was not a bad bet. She was a little easier about financing my early projects after that.

So for a week I have not added any swatch pictures to KnittingFool. I will try to catch it up a bit over the Thanksgiving weekend. Hope you understand.